








WHO IS JESUS CHRIST? 






WHO IS JESUS CHRIST? 


BY 

CHARLES R. BROWN 

Dean of the School of Religion, 
Yale University 


Author of “ The Master s Way,” “ The Quest of Life,” 
“ The Cap and Gown,” “ The Main Points,” etc. 


AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE NORTHFIELD 
STUDENT CONFERENCE 



THE PILGRIM PRESS 

BOSTON CHICAGO 


3Tao | 

•31 


Copyright 1917 
By FRANK M. SHELDON 


po.nr 

MAY IS 1917 


THE PILGRIM PRESS 
BOSTON 

©CI.A460853 


/ * 


WHO IS JESUS CHRIST? 


I am to speak to you this morning about 
the person of Christ. Let me make three 
preliminary remarks: 

This is no mere speculative inquiry to be 
made by scholars, philosophers, and theo¬ 
logians, to be discussed in all its pros and 
cons and then to be laid away on the shelf 
after a conclusion has been reached—it is a 
question of most vital and significant 
interest. 

Neither is it a mere question of historical 
appraisement and evaluation in the consid¬ 
eration of which we turn back nineteen hun¬ 
dred years and try to put a fairly accurate 
estimate upon a man who lived at that time 
in order that we may rank Him with other 
human beings. It is a question of present 
significance. What was Jesus Christ? Who 
was He? And not merely that, but, Who is 
He now? Is He merely a memory of a good 
man gone to His reward? Is He merely a 
disembodied spirit awaiting judgment at the 
[ 5 ] 


Who is Jesus Christ? 


hands of the Eternal? Can He enter into 
any kind of relations with the people here 
on earth as He did in Galilee? Can He sus¬ 
tain personal relationships with us such as 
He sustained with Peter and James and 
John? Is He in any real and personal sense 
Saviour and Lord? You can scarcely name 
a question more vital and significant than 
that. Let us remember, then, as we en¬ 
deavor to ascertain what Jesus Christ is now, 
that it is not a mere question of historical 
appraisal. 

It is furthermore a question raised by the 
Master Himself. He asked His disciples: 
“Whom do men say that I am?” They gave 
in reply the various appraisals of Him that 
were being made at the time—John the Bap¬ 
tist, Jeremiah, Elijah, or one of the prophets 
come to life again. None of these answers 
could he accept. But when Peter’s answer 
came it was one that He could accept, and 
He thereupon turned and pronounced His 
benediction upon Peter. Bear in mind then 
that this is not a question of idle speculation; 
it is not a question of remote historical ap- 
[ 6 ] 


Who is Jesus Christ? 

praisement, but of present significant fact, 
and that it is a question raised by Jesus 
Christ Himself. 

There have been two views—speaking 
broadly—of Jesus Christ which have been 
held almost from the very first. There has 
been the easier and the lower view which 
regarded Jesus as a great man—in fact, the 
wisest and best man that ever lived. The 
men who hold this view regard Him as a 
matchless teacher, one who spake as never 
man spake, one who put His teachings into 
such perfect literary form as to give them 
perennial charm and interest, one who con¬ 
densed His teachings so that there was much 
in small compass. They also regard Him 
as one whose life matched His words; He 
was a perfect example of heroism and unsel¬ 
fishness, of purity and kindness; He pos¬ 
sessed all those qualities that make for moral 
excellence—they were all found in Him at 
their best. 

More than that, He was a moral hero. 
He was one ready to go to the cross, sealing 
His conviction with His own blood. He 


[ 7 ] 


Who is Jesus Christ? 


stopped at nothing to prove His fidelity to 
the cause He espoused. He was, moreover, 
one who manifested the divine character in 
some unusual measure, so that men found 
more of the divine in Him than in any other 
man. 

I do not believe that I have stated this 
lower view unjustly. I want to put in every¬ 
thing that belongs there. I think I have 
stated it fairly. But after all, it amounts 
to about this, that He is not to be ranked as 
standing above the purely human category. 
He stands with Peter and James and John 
and Paul, with Martin Luther and Phillips 
Brooks, and with other great religious 
leaders. That view has been held and ad¬ 
vocated with great earnestness and sincerity 
by many. The Gnostics, the Arians, the 
Socinians, and the Unitarians have been the 
devoted champions of this lower view of the 
person of Christ. 

Then there is the view which I would call 
the higher view of Christ’s person. It re¬ 
gards Christ as one who was indeed the Son 
of Man, one who embodied in Himself all 
[ 8 ] 


Who is Jesus Christ? 


that is essentially and eternally human, one 
who embodied in Himself all the human ex¬ 
cellencies, so that men might turn to Him 
to find those characteristics which reveal 
humanity at its best. He was the Son of 
Man. But more than that, He was the Son 
of God—one who has for us all the religious 
value of God, one who so presented the 
divine character that He was the express 
image of God’s person, one to whom men 
may look up in worship, one to whom men 
may pray, one who lives eternally and is 
capable of entering into what might be called 
cosmic relations with the moral universe, one 
capable of entering into personal relations 
with you and with me, as He did with Peter 
and James and John when He walked with 
them in the streets of Jerusalem and in the 
lanes of Galilee. 

He was, as Dr. George A. Gordon has put 
it, one who was “the prototype of humanity 
existing eternally in the Godhead, but re¬ 
vealed to us in a historic personality as an 
abiding pledge of our own kinship with the 
divine.” This is a theological definition, and 
[ 9 ] 


Who is Jesus Christ? 


it covers what I would regard as the higher 
view of Christ’s person, one who was in every 
sense of the word divine. 

I believe in the higher view. I hold to it 
strongly. I believe it to be a vital element 
in the Christian gospel. If we are to “preach 
Christ,” we must preach that higher, fuller 
view of Christ’s person in order to make His 
gospel effective. Let me indicate my rea¬ 
sons for holding that view. There are three 
main reasons that I shall briefly outline. 

I 

First of all , I find on the pages of the 
New Testament a certain portrait given to 
us by His contemporaries and by Himself. 
It is the portrait of one who was more than 
just a man. (1) We find that portrait in 
the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and 
Luke. These gospels are regarded by 
scholars as standing in a different class from 
the fourth gospel. They are more historic 
and, therefore, more accurate in their por¬ 
trayal of Jesus of Nazareth. The fourth 
[ 10 ] 


Who is Jesus Chiist? 


gospel is more metaphysical, more of a 
philosophical interpretation. 

In these synoptic gospels we find the por¬ 
trait of one who was to the writers more 
than human. We find the name of Jesus 
bracketted with the name of God. We find 
ascribed to Jesus the right to forgive sins. 
We find his name coupled with the name of 
the Father in the formula for baptism: “In 
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
of the Holy Ghost.” 

Remember that these men were Hebrews. 
They were trained and steeped in the doc¬ 
trine of monotheism, the doctrine of one 
God. Over the cradle of every Hebrew 
child was chanted the formula that declared 
this great truth: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord 
our God is one.” The very idea of giving di¬ 
vine honors to a human being would have 
been to these men a horrible crime, but when 
they came to write these synoptic gospels 
they affirmed that which indicated clearly 
their own view that Jesus was something 
more than human. 


[ii] 


Who is Jesus Chiist? 


(2) More than that, we find this same 
portrait in the letters of Paul. We find it 
in those letters that are unmistakably the 
letters of Paul. There is no more doubt in 
the minds of the more radical scholars that 
Paul wrote Galatians, First and Second 
Corinthians, and Romans, than there is that 
Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of 
Independence. Paul was no dunce. He 
was a university man. He knew the differ¬ 
ence between God and man; he understood 
the theological views of his time. And Paul 
used the Greek language with care and ac¬ 
curacy. When we come to his letters we 
find him drawing the same kind of a por¬ 
trait that we found in the synoptic gospels. 
He couples the name of Jesus with the name 
of God the Father. 

He had been trained in Judaism; he was a 
Pharisee of the Pharisees. But when he 
writes, Paul speaks of God and Jesus Christ 
together. He writes of “the love of God, 
the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the 
fellowship of the Holy Spirit.” Over and 
over again we find him exalting Christ as the 


Who is Jesus Christ? 


Saviour of the world. He prayed to Christ; 
he worshipped Christ. 

(3) Now that same portrait we find also 
in the teachings of the fourth gospel. The 
Gospel of John appeared at a very early 
time; it was accepted by those men who had 
been fed upon the tradition of Christ’s own 
teachings,—accepted as being veritable 
Scripture. We find no attempt made in the 
Gospel of John to secure the same standing 
for Peter or Paul or James, or for any other 
religious leader, that was made for Jesus. 
I attach therefore much importance to the 
testimony given in that Gospel. 

In that Gospel we find this doctrine con¬ 
cerning the person of Christ in all its full¬ 
ness. “I am the way, the truth, and the 
life.” “No man cometh unto the Father but 
by me.” “He that hath seen me hath seen 
the Father.” “I am the resurrection and 
the life.” “He that believeth on me, though 
he were dead, yet shall he live.” “I am the 
door: by me, if any man enter in, he shall 
be saved.” “I am the bread that came down 
from heaven.” “I am the light of the world: 

[13] 


Who is Jesus Christ? 


he that folio we th me shall not walk in dark¬ 
ness.” I could stand here for the next ten 
minutes giving these expressions which came 
from Him. Think of any man who ever 
lived, the best man who ever lived, and you 
cannot put into his mouth such expressions 
as, “ I am the way”; “I am the door”; “I 
am the life.” Here is the portrait of one 
who is more than human. 

(4) In the fourth place, we find the tes¬ 
timony of Jesus regarding Himself. He 
knew—and He was no rattle-brained enthu¬ 
siast—He knew how much was involved in 
making these high claims for Himself. 
Either they were made genuinely and ac¬ 
curately, or else He was guilty of blasphemy 
and arrogance such as we have never wit¬ 
nessed from any other on earth. 

Here are some of the claims He made: 
He claimed to be sinless. You never find 
any word of penitence upon His lips. You 
never hear him offering a prayer for personal 
forgiveness. He taught us to pray for for¬ 
giveness, but He never prayed for His own 

[ 14 ] 


Who is Jesus Christ? 

shortcomings. “Who convicteth me of sin?” 
No one ever did. 

He claimed the right to judge the world. 
In the Gospel of Matthew He pictured the 
Son of Man coming to judge the world, and 
we see Him dividing the sheep from the 
goats. 

He took that central, vital position in the 
whole work of human salvation. Salvation 
depended upon knowing Him, upon follow¬ 
ing Him, upon becoming obedient to His 
own will. “Follow me”; Come unto me, 
all ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and 
I will give you rest”; “Take my yoke upon 
you, and you will find rest unto your souls.” 
I hold this higher view of Christ because I 
find that portrait on the pages of the New 
Testament—in the synoptic gospels, in the 
letters of Paul, in the fourth gospel, and in 
the teachings of Christ Himself. He was 
to all those writers who stood so much nearer 
to him than do we more than man. 


[15] 


Who is Jems Christ? 

II 

In the second place> I hold the higher 
view of Christ because of the history of 
Christianity in the last nineteen hundred 
years . Here we are not dealing with theo¬ 
logical speculation or with remote historical 
data; we are dealing with hard facts which 
can not be disputed. IIow do the facts of 
the centuries relate themselves to this higher 
view? What has been the verdict of the 
Christian ages ? I am not a pragmatist, but 
I do believe that in the long run the truth 
will work better than anything else. You 
may not accept as full validation of any 
claim the fact that it has worked, but that 
ought to be something in its favor. If any¬ 
thing is to be established upon that basis, 
we want to have it tried over a wide area 
and for a long time. You cannot fully test 
every claim in ten years, but if you find that 
a certain truth has worked during sixteen 
hundred years and has worked all over the 
world, then those results will have great 
weight. 

Now what are the results of this higher 
[ 16 ] 


Who is Jesus Christ? 


view in the mere matter of numbers? Those 
taking the lower view of Christ are just a 
handful, comparatively speaking. Their 
number has not increased measurably. The 
lower view has not had the ability to com¬ 
mand the widespread loyalty of men. 

I am a Congregationalist myself. A little 
over a hundred years ago, we had a split in 
our denomination. There were those who 
held the lower view of Christ’s person. They 
insisted upon that view, and they brought 
about a division of the Congregational 
Church. We have no strongly centralized 
authority in our body, and this radical dif¬ 
ference in belief divided the denomination 
almost equally. The men who held the lower 
view of the person of Christ withdrew, tak¬ 
ing with them a large amount of property 
and a large number of members who had be¬ 
longed to the Congregational Church. That 
was a little over a hundred years ago. At 
that time the Unitarian leaders were saying 
that within twenty-five years all the Chris¬ 
tians in the country would come over to 
their side. They now number something 

[17] 


Who is Jesus Christ? 


like 80,000 or 90,000, while the other branch 
of the Congregational Church holding the 
higher view of Christ’s person numbers 800,- 
000. And we are a very small denomination 
as compared with the Methodists with their 
7,000,000, or the Baptists, who have almost 
as many more, or the Presbyterians, with 
their three or four millions, or the Lutherans 
with several millions, or the Episcopalians 
with a million more. Somehow those 
branches of the Christian Church which have 
held strongly and steadily the higher view 
of Christ have had the wind and the tide 
with them. 

That branch of the Christian church 
which has held the lower view of Christ has 
not been able to show in its gospel that 
regenerating power which will take hold 
of a bad man and make him good. Show 
me among them a single work like that being 
done in the Jerry McAuley Mission in New 
York, the McCall Mission in Paris, the 
Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago, or the 
work of our own Bill Ellis in the Yale Mis¬ 
sion in New Haven. Can you name a single 
[ 18 ] 


Who is Jesus Christ? 


place of that kind where they are making 
saints of men who were wrecked by their sins 
through the preaching of this lower idea of 
Christ’s person? If you want to get the 
spirit of evil out of a man and the spirit of 
God into him, it seems that this higher view 
of Christ’s person is needed to do the busi¬ 
ness. 

The denomination which holds the lower 
view of Christ’s person once had a piece of 
property in Boston where they had been 
using their own humane methods to help 
people, and they had been doing it with un¬ 
stinted generosity. But they discovered that 
their preaching did not lay hold of the people 
in that section. It was in one of the poorer 
parts of Boston, not far from the red light 
district, a place where men and women were 
overcome by the coarsest sins. By and by, 
they took what was a very large-minded 
action. They went to the Methodists and 
said they were willing to let them take that 
property for a nominal rental and see what 
they could do with it. The Methodists took 
the work over. Today it has become the 

[19] 


Who is Jesus Christ? 


great Morgan Memorial work in Boston. It 
was a very handsome action on the part of 
the owners of that property, but it was prac¬ 
tically a recognition of the fact that the 
gospel containing the higher view of Christ’s 
person has a power over men that their 
gospel has not. 

Where in the history of Christianity for 
nineteen hundred years do we find the great 
missionary movements—the generosity that 
is willing and ready to go with its convic¬ 
tions and its service out into the great pagan 
world, to undertake to introduce to those 
pagan people the Christian life as found in 
Jesus of Nazareth? Where do you find 
that ? In those denominations which hold the 
higher view of Christ’s person. 

The others have tried, but they have been 
unsuccessful. It was an interesting occur¬ 
rence when a representative of that branch 
of Christianity holding the lower view of 
Christ’s person once came to the representa¬ 
tives of another society and said: “We would 
like to have a part in this foreign movement, 
but the missionaries we send out do not seem 
[ 20 ] 


Who is Jesus Christ? 


to be able to get hold of these people. If 
you will appoint some missionaries, assign 
them work, and direct them, we will be glad 
to furnish the money to pay their salaries. 
We will furnish the money; you furnish the 
men and give them directions, and let them 
preach your gospel. ,, 

This was generous, but it was also a frank 
admission that somehow the greater strength 
of Christianity lies in those branches of the 
Christian Church that hold the higher view 
of Christ’s person. “Men do not gather 
grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles.” Is it 
any more probable that men would get the 
best results from some distortion of the truth 
rather than from the truth itself? When we 
observe that in seventeen centuries of Chris¬ 
tian activity somehow the larger measure of 
success comes with the higher view of 
Christ’s person and comparative failure with 
the lower view, it surely must mean some¬ 
thing. 


[21] 


Who is Jesus Christ? 


Ill 

The third main reason why I hold this 
higher view is because I find it spiritually 
satisfying to myself and to other men. 
When men become conscious of their guilt, 
conscious of their sin, conscious of their need 
of spiritual help, I find that somehow faith 
in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the 
Saviour of mankind, is satisfying as the 
other belief is not. 

I turn back to the time of my own con¬ 
version. I felt that I was lost; I was alien¬ 
ated from God. I wanted something to 
change and renew my own heart. I put my 
faith in Jesus Christ, and by putting my 
faith in Him and my sins behind me I re¬ 
ceived that help in which I have ever since 
rejoiced. That experience was not peculiar 
to me. It is the experience of penitent men 
everywhere. When we believe that the 
divine and the human were blended in one 
perfect life in that) vital fashion, we can be¬ 
lieve that the human and the divine elements 
may be blended in every believing soul, so 
[ 22 ] 


Who is Jesus Christ? 

that we can become worthy sons and daugh¬ 
ters of the Most High. 

We have ceased to speak of the human 
and the divine as standing over against each 
other with a great gulf fixed between them, 
as if they were entirely unlike. We have 
come to think of them more in the New Tes¬ 
tament terms of the branch and the vine, the 
father and the child. Man is made poten¬ 
tially in the image of God and with capacity 
to receive unto himself the divine help. 
When we believe in this because of our ob¬ 
servation of what has been historically real¬ 
ized in Jesus Christ, there comes the sense 
of an almighty reinforcement. 

These are my three reasons for holding 
the higher view: because of the portrait given 
of Christ in the New Testament, both by 
His contemporaries and by Himself; be¬ 
cause of the history of the Christian move¬ 
ment during the last nineteen hundred years; 
because the higher view is spiritually satisfy¬ 
ing as the other view is not. 

There are serious intellectual difficulties 
involved in holding this belief. It is dif- 

[ 23 ] 


Who is Jesus Christ? 


ficult to understand how Christ could be both 
human and divine. How could he be 
tempted like as we are? How could he be 
subject to all the laws of growth, increasing 
in stature, in wisdom, and in favor with God 
and with man? How could he taste the 
whole human situation for every man and 
yet be the Son of God and Saviour of men? 
It is not easy to understand. There are a 
great many things which we do not find it 
easy to understand, but that does not indi¬ 
cate for a moment that there is no truth in 
them, or that they cannot be utilized in this 
life of ours. 

I am much at a loss to understand elec¬ 
tricity. I can not understand how that 
subtle invisible force comes into the car to 
make it move, to light it at night, and to 
warm it in winter. The electrical engineers do 
not understand it. They say it is “a form of 
energy.” But that does not mean anything. 
A dog going down street with a tin can tied 
to his tail is also “a form of energy.” The 
motorman on the front platform of the car 
does not understand it. He calls it “juice,” 

[ 24 ] 


Who is Jesus Christ? 


and when he says that he has done just as 
much to express his final ignorance of the 
real nature of electricity as the man who 
uses five words of nine syllables each. 

But we can use electricity, even when “we 
know in part.” I would be a fool to stand on 
the street corner in the storm and refuse to 
ride home in the lighted and heated car, read¬ 
ing my paper in comfort, just because I do 
not understand everything about electricity. 
I can use that subtle, invisible power for my 
own advantage even though I do not under¬ 
stand all the mysteries connected with its 
operation. 

So with my view of the person of Jesus 
Christ! When I come to consider the ques¬ 
tion as to whether He was self-deceived or 
guilty of blasphemy; when I come to con¬ 
sider whether those contemporaries were mis¬ 
led in the high estimate they put upon Him; 
when I look to these nineteen centuries of 
Christian success and wonder whether they 
were all mistaken; when I come to the deeper 
experiences of my own heart, I am forced 
to believe that Christ is the Son of the living 

[ 25 ] 


Who is Jesus Christ? 


God, the Saviour of the world. I use the 
power that comes from that faith for my 
own life and for the lives of my fellow men. 
Therefore I rejoice in the belief that Jesus 
Christ is the power of God unto salvation 
to every one that believes, even though that 
claim holds many a mystery as yet unsolved. 


[ 26 ] 



































































































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